27 votes

Trackmania’s Deep Dip 2 has finally been beaten!

12 comments

  1. [6]
    kfwyre
    (edited )
    Link
    It was just finished for the first time by Bren! I was up early and managed to catch it live, which was very cool. His ending was so close I wasn’t even sure if he made it! For those who haven’t...

    It was just finished for the first time by Bren! I was up early and managed to catch it live, which was very cool. His ending was so close I wasn’t even sure if he made it!

    For those who haven’t been following this:

    Deep Dip 2 is an extremely technical Trackmania map with 16 different floors and no checkpoints. Racers have to complete a large number of very precise tricks to work their way up the levels to win at the top. If at any point you mess up, you fall back down. Depending on where you fall, you might only go down a bit and be able to recover, but sometimes you’ll lose your entire run.

    My friend described it as “Celeste for cars with no checkpoints.”

    Top Trackmania racers have been working on the map for over a month now. Bren won with over 2000 attempts and 220 hours on that single map alone. His winning run took over an hour to complete.

    Edit: Full run VODs:

    • Twitch (full stream recording, including Bren’s reaction at the end)
    • YouTube (replay file recording, including inputs)

    Double Edit:

    For anyone watching the video, on Floor 16 Bren spends a lot of time practicing a specific trick that involves a wallride with a bounce. The track creator actually included a small practice area where players can try the trick (relatively) safely before heading on to the actual part of the track where you have to apply the trick under pressure. This is why the run seems to hang there for a bit — it’s not that he was stuck — it’s that he wanted to figure out the trick in the practice area before he attempted the real thing. His diligence clearly paid off!

    16 votes
    1. [5]
      GunnarRunnar
      Link Parent
      How do you feel about Wirtual basically calling it a bit too much to the point that it started to be toxic to him? He's my only touch point to the scene. I can't believe the strength of will it...

      How do you feel about Wirtual basically calling it a bit too much to the point that it started to be toxic to him? He's my only touch point to the scene. I can't believe the strength of will it takes to basically grind over a month at the same punishing level.

      7 votes
      1. mat
        Link Parent
        Absolutely cannot blame the guy at all. As he pointed out in his video, he has other people depending on him to produce other content than continually going over the same track again and again and...

        Absolutely cannot blame the guy at all. As he pointed out in his video, he has other people depending on him to produce other content than continually going over the same track again and again and again to gain maybe a couple of metres of extra height.

        I can't imagine how frustrating and mentally draining it must be to put in all those hours of concentration and barely make any progress.

        11 votes
      2. [2]
        Sheep
        Link Parent
        I absolutely get where Wirtual is coming from, but let's not forget he's coming at Deep Dip 2 with the mindset of a streamer. By repeating the same map that much his content gets stale (affecting...

        I absolutely get where Wirtual is coming from, but let's not forget he's coming at Deep Dip 2 with the mindset of a streamer.

        By repeating the same map that much his content gets stale (affecting his youtube channel and probably torturing his editors) and his fans might get bored of it too. Not to mention he has to entertain his viewers throughout this repeating cycle, which isn't an easy feat.

        As a streamer, farming a map like this is way more mentally exhausting than if you were just playing by yourself or with friends and focusing entirely on it without having to worry about your stream.

        So yeah, can't blame him for dipping out, but I think if you were a more casual player the map isn't as toxic (though still hellish)

        7 votes
        1. V17
          Link Parent
          He said (in a following kacky stream) that the main issue he had with it in the end was that there were multiple floors which were not really difficult or interesting but just took too much time...

          So yeah, can't blame him for dipping out, but I think if you were a more casual player the map isn't as toxic (though still hellish)

          He said (in a following kacky stream) that the main issue he had with it in the end was that there were multiple floors which were not really difficult or interesting but just took too much time in every attempt (and could still be screwed up when you momentarily lose concentration). That ideally he would like the map to be shorter with just the difficult floors and possibly to move some of the difficult floors lower. These issues are going to be hellish for everyone, streamer or not.

          6 votes
      3. kfwyre
        Link Parent
        I get it and don’t blame Wirtual at all. The map is unbelievably difficult and sadistically punishing. Knowing your own limits with stuff like that is healthy. I look forward to the content...

        I get it and don’t blame Wirtual at all. The map is unbelievably difficult and sadistically punishing. Knowing your own limits with stuff like that is healthy.

        I look forward to the content Wirtual will put out now that it’s done.

        7 votes
  2. mat
    Link
    I am a pretty middling trackmania driver. I'm fairly consistently in the top few thousand in the UK, so not great but not awful either. I can usually get gold or better on a track if I put some...

    I am a pretty middling trackmania driver. I'm fairly consistently in the top few thousand in the UK, so not great but not awful either. I can usually get gold or better on a track if I put some time in.

    I could barely make it past the fifth jump or so on the ground floor of Deep Dip 2, even with an or so hour of trying. The skill of the people getting up to the higher floors is astonishing, and even then there have only been a handful people in the world who looked likely to ever finish. I'm so glad Bren got it - Lars and Hazard and elConn have all been driving incredibly - but this was always Bren's to win.

    7 votes
  3. V17
    Link
    About 2,5 hours later we have a second finisher, Elconn. Even though every finisher after the first one has the advantage of being able to look at how the guy in front of them did it and Bren...

    About 2,5 hours later we have a second finisher, Elconn.

    Even though every finisher after the first one has the advantage of being able to look at how the guy in front of them did it and Bren surely deserves the win for his work on discovery and finding efficient strategies for obstacles, it's still pretty crazy that after more than a month of grinding the first two guys finish just a few hours from each other.

    7 votes
  4. [3]
    gingerbeardman
    Link
    I'm looking for a video link. Can I watch this run?

    I'm looking for a video link. Can I watch this run?

    3 votes
    1. [2]
      kfwyre
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Twitch (full stream recording, including Bren’s reaction at the end) YouTube (replay file recording, including inputs)

      Twitch (full stream recording, including Bren’s reaction at the end)
      YouTube (replay file recording, including inputs)

      6 votes
      1. gingerbeardman
        Link Parent
        Many thanks! And good grief what skills.

        Many thanks! And good grief what skills.

        1 vote
  5. Arminius
    Link
    I have been watching the progress for the last month and finally I can quote Frodo "It's done"

    I have been watching the progress for the last month and finally I can quote Frodo "It's done"

    3 votes